You know what they say, we are all African anyway.

So unlike you Socceroos and All Whites, Elephants and Desert Foxes, India's 2010 World Cup football is going to belong to the ‘brotherhood of man' school of fandom.

When the first vuvuzela is sounded, our eyes will fill with tears. No, it won't be because we've been unable to wrest an invitation to South Africa's biggest party unlike some of the overjoyed others.

Yes, we know, we have the second largest population on the planet, a booming economy, millions of software nerds and other smart people, a love of celebration, enough resources. So what's it with the football? Why is it tough to even be half-way decent in this simplest of team sports? Why can't India even get close to the World Cup?

A few facts: it did. An invitation to the 1950 World Cup was terminated because the organizers refused to let us to play barefoot.

Like the rest of the planet, we love football. Sure the total fan base may not match cricket, but India's most steadfast soccer supporters - minus the nouveau Man U-Chelsea-obsessed youth - could easily be twice the combined population of Australia and New Zealand.

Already in parts of Bengal, the external walls of unsuspecting neighbours are being daubed with Kaka, Messi and Cristiano murals.

A district in Kerala (secret chant "just sue us, Nike") is waiting for the perfect moment to flood its markets with fake team jerseys.

In Goa, bars, shops and homes are tanking up on crates of beer.

These old strongholds of Indian football can even remember when we were counted among our continent's best football teams, dominating the 1950s, the first Asian squad to make it to the Olympic semi-finals in 1956.

From then on, India have slid or rather, kept diving, like the imagination-less striker does in the penalty box.

India's oldest footballing heartland, Bengal is just a reflection of our soccer saga: its most loyal fans still turn up even though the clubs' functioning is trapped by its own tradition.

Standards changed in soccer everywhere, here time stopped.

Grounds were not modernized, neither was talent scouting or the junior programmes. (Young fans from a small town near Kolkata tell the story, in the picture above, ahead of a visit from Bayern Munich last year.)

So, the sons of fans who inherit their father's memberships today watch the EPL, La Liga and Serie A on TV. Their seasonal, worshipful visits to watch the local club keep shrinking.

Last month, a 48-year-old club owned by an established business house was told that this was to be its last season.

A somnolent national federation has mostly yawned. FIFA handouts were soaked in and an impressive turnover of foreign coaches and indifferent results attached to the national team.

Complicated tasks like remodeling antiquated structures, expanding practice facilities, setting up development programs, even setting up sustained international calendars was far too complicated. No surprises then that India are now ranked No. 133 in the world, 21 in Asia.

From the 1960s onwards, as the world sped past, we fell back on re-cycling India's most favourite ye olde sporting clichés: bad genes, lack of killer instinct, vegetarianism. (To those excuses, 2010 offers only a two-word response: North Korea.)

Yet, maybe this is the time for Indian football to be hopeful. The national team has had three good years. Under new coach Englishman Bob Houghton, the man with the plan, three titles have been won and India will play the AFC Asian Cup after 26 years.

Goa is now the centre of our club football, the old Bengal clubs challenged. Who knows they could even respond.

Major League Soccer in the States has its first Indian signing, Sunil Chhetri for the Kansas City Wizards.

Rumours abound that there could be a revamp of India's professional league, inspired by the, what else, the IPL. (Whether this means mandatory money laundering is not yet certain.)

So as teams makes giant strides in South Africa, we will be giving such baby steps a half-chance.

And of course, we'll be rooting for Brazil, at the top of our one billion voices.